Archive for Sexology

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The following sampler gives a first impression of the documents in our collection, which contains many more items than are shown here. The entire collection can be studied on location at our archive during regular opening hours.

Please note: All images are quick load JPEG's. To get the full size picture, just click on them for a larger image.

René Guyon, as a young French lawyer and judge, was called to the Kingdom of Siam in 1908 to help with the drafting of new legal codes. He eventually became head of the revision committee and, after the completion of the work, published a report "The Work of Codification in Siam" (1919). He traveled extensively in Europe and Asia and finally became a justice at the Supreme Court of Appeals in Bangkok, where he lived until his death. Guyon was convinced of the superior sexual attitudes of Thailand as opposed to those in the West. He therefore wrote a number of works on sexual ethics, severely criticizing Western sexual values. He condemned the League of Nations for their Puritanism and also attacked the Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations, because it did not mention any sexual rights. Several prominent American sexologists took an interest in Guyon's moral crusades, among them R. L. Dickinson, Harry Benjamin, and Kinsey. So far, no French sexologist or cultural historian seems to have become aware of Guyon's work, most of which is written in French, including several unpublished ms. at the Kinsey Institute. Our own Archive possesses several documents, mostly relating to his personal life in Bangkok. (For more details, see E. J. Haeberle, "Human Rights and Sexual Rights: The Legacy of René Guyon" in Medicine and Law (1983) 2: 159-172.) For a list of Guyon's writings, click here.

1. Photo of Guyon as a younger man in Bangkok. [93K]	2. Guyon's library and writing desk (front left) in his house in Bangkok. [87K]	3. Photo of Guyon's house in Bangkok. [97K]

4. Map of Bangkok, indicating location of Guyon's house. [778K]	5. Letter written by Alfred Kinsey to G.R. Weaver, Guyon's American translator. [95K]	6. Letter written to Guyon's American publisher, signed a.o. by the sexologists Dickinson and Harry Benjamin. [190K]

7. Title page of the English edition of Guyon's book "La Liberté Sexuelle". This English edition was first published in 1939 and reprinted in 1949. [59K]	8. Title page of a pamphlet by Guyon attacking the United Nations for their failure to protect sexual rights (1951). [20K] For full text, click here.	9. Front cover of a French booklet by Guyon on sexual freedom (of 1952). [61K]

-- Please note: All images are quick load JPEG's. To get the full size just click on them for a larger image.

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